Follow by Email

Sunday, May 27, 2018

Unstoppable

Programmed Not to Brake,

The investigation into the Uber Robocab that killed 49 year old Elaine Herzberg walking her bike at night in Tempe, Arizona, reveals that there were automatic sensors that detected her 6 seconds before the car hit her. They wereset to NOT alert the driver. The sensors were also integrated into an automatic emergency braking system, that Uber Always Turned Off, to make the ride smoother. The human driver was the only protection against machine-murder. She didn't know that. She was kind of looking around at things, like a passenger would.

The Uber car's radar and lidar sensors observed the pedestrian about six seconds before impact. Elaine Herzberg, 49, who was walking her bicycle across the street, was identified by the sensors first as an unknown object, then as a vehicle and then as a bicycle, the NTSB said... "The vehicle operator is relied on to intervene and take action," the NTSB wrote in the report. "The system is not designed to alert the operator... It's further evidence that people just don't experience driverless cars as being their responsibility even when they've been told that it is, even when the system relies on them," said Ryan Calo, a law professor at the University of Washington... "This is a human failing, specifically it is a human failing of the engineers who have made certain choices," Calo said about the Uber collision. "You jerry-rigged things to make it work more smoothly."

James Anderson — a professor of atmospheric chemistry at Harvard University — is warning that climate change will wipe out all of humanity unless we stop using fossil fuels over the next five years. Professor Anderson warned that climate change is drastically pushing Earth back to the Eocene Epoch from 33 million BCE, when there was no ice on either pole. Anderson says current pollution levels have already catastrophically depleted atmospheric ozone levels, which absorb 98 percent of ultraviolet rays, to levels not seen in 12 million years.Anderson’s assessment of humanity’s timeline for action is likely accurate, given that his diagnosis and discovery of Antarctica’s ozone holes led to the Montreal Protocol of 1987. Anderson’s research was recognized by the United Nations in September of 1997.

Cover Pedophiles in government, go straight to prison. That will teach everyone to observe the news blackout:

UK activist and English Defence League founder Tommy Robinson was arrested on Friday outside of Leeds Crown Court for reporting on a pedophile grooming trial. Within six hours of his arrest, Robinson was handed a 13 month prison term for violating a prior suspended sentence for a similar offense, while media outlets were banned from covering the incident by the court - with several removing reports which had already been published.

A controversial new bill set to go before Israel's Ministerial Committee for Legislation in the Knesset on Sunday would ban taking videos or photos of Israeli soldiers in the process of arresting or subduing Palestinians. (Only good stories about Israel are allowed. You're not "anti-semitic", are you? Are you?)

How Russia and China gained a strategic advantage in hypersonic missile technology. (They had to negate the US military outspending them 15:1. Sinking aircraft carriers and sending ICBMs that are way too fast to shoot down sustains the Mutuality of Assured Destruction (Worst fear, now our best hope?)

Dmitry Orlov looks at the US-Russia rivalry. It's not all in the budgets... Thanks Hubert.

Russia will not resort to military measures against the US unless sorely provoked. Time and patience are on Russia’s side. With each passing year, the US grows weaker and loses friends and allies, while Russia grows stronger and gains friends and allies. The US, with its political dysfunction, runaway debt, decaying infrastructure and spreading civil unrest, is a dead nation walking. It will take time for each of the United States to neatly demolish themselves into their own footprints, like those three New York skyscrapers did on 9/11 (WTC #1, #2 and #7) but Russia is very patient. Russia is ready to respond to any provocation, but the last thing the Russians want is another war. And that, if you like good news, is the best news you are going to hear.

Vladimir Putin and other European financial bigwigs sit around and talk about the current American financial warfare, using the $US against friend and foe alike, threatens the current global financial regime (Hint, HINT!)

Despite his absence from Vladimir Putin's annual economic showcase - which included such US allied luminaries as Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, French President Emmanuel Macron, China’s Vice President Wang Qishan and IMF chief Christine Lagarde - the conversation kept coming back to President Trump.“The free market and fair competition are being squeezed by confiscations, restrictions, sanctions,” Putin said.“There are various terms but the meaning is the same -- they’ve become an official part of the trade policy of certain countries.”The “spiral” of U.S. penalties is targeting “an ever larger number of countries and companies,” undermining “the current world order,” he said.Macron replied: “I fully share your point of view.”

Putin also expressed frustration at having little contact with Trump and faulted the investigation into whether there was collusion between Trump's campaign and Russia and whether Russia tried to interfere with the 2016 U.S. election."We are hostages to this internal strife in the United States," Putin said. "I hope that it will end some day and the objective need for the development of Russian-American relationships will prevail."The Russian president spoke out against the growing trend of using unilateral restrictions to achieve economic advantage, as he addressed guests of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) on Friday.“The system of multilateral cooperation, which took years to build, is no longer allowed to evolve. It is being broken in a very crude way. Breaking the rules is becoming the new rule,” he said.Putin sharply criticized the sanctions, saying they signal "not just erosion but the dismantling of a system of multilateral cooperation that took decades to build."https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-05-26/russias-gold-hoard-soars-putin-warns-us-sanctions-hurt-trust-dollar-reserve

​How long can they wait for this man to die of old age? He looks pretty healthy.

ROME (Reuters) - Italy’s would-be coalition parties turned up the pressure on President Sergio Mattarella on Saturday to endorse their eurosceptic pick as economy minister, saying the only other option may be a new election. Mattarella has held up formation of a government, which would end more than 80 days of political deadlock, over concern about the far-right League and anti-establishment 5-Star Movement’s desire to make the 81-year-old economist Paolo Savona economy minister.Savona has been a vocal critic of the euro and the European Union, but he has distinguished credentials, including in a former role as an industry minister.

More about American straws breaking the EU camel's back...“As we see, restrictions imposed by the American partners are of an extraterritorial nature. The possibility of switching from the US dollar to the euro in settlements depends on Europe’s stance toward Washington’s position,”said Siluanov, who is also Russia’s first deputy prime minister.https://www.rt.com/business/427654-russia-euro-payments-trade/

America 2018, "Dicier by the day", Charles Hugh Smith

As the tent cities of the homeless proliferate, cities and counties are finding their revenues are devoted to pension obligations, leaving less and less to education, filling potholes, addressing the homeless crisis, the opioid crisis, etc. When the "everything bubble" pops and assets crater, the impossibility of fulfilling promises made in "good times" will be apparent to all but those demanding "their fair share."

Of Course the US Birth Rates are Falling- This is a Harsh Place to Have a Family:

The US is one of only four countries in the world with no government-subsidized maternity leave while 36% of the workforce are contract laborers with no access to benefits. The other three are Lesotho, Swaziland, and Papua New Guinea. (Is that a bug or a feature?)

“For the success of the North Korea-U.S. summit, we’re exploring various ways of clearing North Korea’s security concerns at the working level,” the senior South Korean presidential official told reporters. “That includes an end to hostile relations, mutual non-aggression pledge, a launch of peace treaty talks to replace the current armistice,” the official said.

The Syrian government and its Russian ally plan to clean up the southwest region of Syria around the city of Daraa. The move should open the M5 highway, Syria's lifeline, between Damascus and Jordan and secure the border with Jordan as well as the demarcation line with the Israel occupied Golan Heights. The operation was supposed to start in a day or two, but the U.S. has now threatened to intervene. As the southwest Daraa governorate is infested with a large Islamic State (ISIS) group as well as al-Qaeda and associated groups the U.S.move must be interpreted as protection for these terrorists... Last night the U.S. State Department published this threat: The United States is concerned by reports of an impending Assad regime operation in southwest Syria within the boundaries of the de-escalation zone negotiated between the United States, Jordan, and the Russian Federation last year and reaffirmed between Presidents Trump and Putin in Da Nang, Vietnam in November. The United States remains committed to maintaining the stability of the southwest de-escalation zone and to the ceasefire underpinning it. We also caution the Syrian regime against any actions that risk broadening the conflict or jeopardize the ceasefire. As a guarantor of this de-escalation area with Russia and Jordan, the United States will take firm and appropriate measures in response to Assad regime violations... I have not seen any reaction yet from the Syrian or Russian side.

Investigation in the Netherlands finally announces what it was always required to eventually announce, that Russia shot down MH-17 over Ukraine on July 17, 2014, by smuggling a missile launch system across the border, using it once to shoot down civilians, and smuggling it back into Russia. There is evidence we can't be shown. (Of course this was a big mistake for Russia to do. Why would they do it? Putin?)

A group of US Air Force air men who were part of an elite squad responsible for safeguarding America's nuclear weapons have been busted for using and distributing the hallucinogen LSD and other drugs, according to the Associated Press, which published details from several courts martial involving members of the purported ring... "Minutes felt like hours, colors seemed more vibrant and clear," Morrison testified. "In general, I felt more alive." He said he had used LSD in high school, which could have disqualified him from Air Force service; he said that his recruiter told him he should lie about it and that lying about prior drug use was "normal" in the Air Force.